


Nightscapes

by potentiality_26



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Culture Shock, Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Everyone said he was integrating well, and for the most part Steve believed it- but sometimes he looked out the window and sketched what a part of him was still convinced was a set-piece from a science fiction film and he wasn’t sure he was integrating that well at all.</em>
</p>
<p>Steve has trouble sleeping in the tower.  He isn't the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightscapes

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an [ hc_bingo](http://potentiality-26.livejournal.com/50135.html) extra for _insomnia_ and _culture shock_.

Steve sketched a lot of cityscapes. 

He had found an out-of-the-way window seat within the tower which afforded him a frankly spectacular view of the city. It didn’t seem to matter how many times he looked at it, how many times he drew it, or how long he lived there- a part of him still couldn’t quite embrace the notion that this was his home now.

Everyone said he was integrating well, and for the most part Steve believed it- but sometimes he looked out the window and sketched what a part of him was still convinced was a set-piece from a science fiction film and he wasn’t sure he was integrating that well at all.

One thing that… didn’t help, exactly, but certainly made the fact that nothing helped easier, was that sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep and sat up late drawing, he wasn’t alone.  

Thor had trouble sleeping too. He made himself a lot of tea, and sometimes he pulled up a chair by Steve’s window and gazed out. For such a boisterous man- or god, or whatever- Steve had learned that Thor could be quiet, contemplative company.

“Do you need less sleep than us?” Steve asked him once as he sketched.

“To survive? Yes.”

“But you could be sleeping.”

“I could.” Thor looked out the city. “This place is… noisy, but the thrum of it is not the same as Asgard. Many times as a boy I left home with my parents, and then later with the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif, or with… my brother. Sometimes we would be gone for years at a time- which was not much, in the scheme of things. I did not expect, after all this time, to feel the difference from home so keenly. This world is strange and I am still trying to find my place in it, yet I do not know why this one thing comes so slowly.”

“Maybe this one thing is all things,” Steve mused, not solely for Thor’s benefit. He glanced up from his sketching to see Thor looking at him oddly. “I’m still trying to find my place in this world too. When I… went to sleep, I hadn’t been home in quite a while. And yeah, even back then sometimes waking up somewhere other than that little drafty apartment with- with Bucky right across the room was… just about incomprehensible. But it was never quite like this. So I guess I have to look at it as part of a whole. My life is different now, and it changed so fast. I have to make my peace with that.”

“And how has that gone for you so far?”

“It’s ongoing.”

“Hmm,” Thor said, taking his eyes of Steve to look back out the window. “I think that I like that phrase.”

“I think that I would like it if you used it in front of Stark. Seriously, if you want anything to do that-”

Thor cocked his head to one side. “If you were willing to part with one, I would like one of those drawings.”

“Really? I mean, you _can_ \- I have… dozens. But why?”

Thor shrugged, as if he didn’t know himself.

“It doesn’t really matter why,” Steve decided aloud. “Sure. Whichever you want.”        

Thor saluted Steve with his teacup, and Steve went back to looking out the window. Eventually, both of them did.


End file.
